How to Use surveil in a Sentence

surveil

verb
  • The stork took flight, did a loop to surveil the boat and perched on a lamppost near the bank.
    Safak Timur Ivor Prickett, New York Times, 30 Mar. 2024
  • How much more of my life does this behemoth want to surveil?
    Elizabeth Lopatto, The Verge, 28 Feb. 2023
  • The mission was more than an effort to surveil Russian forces.
    David Axe, Forbes, 27 Dec. 2021
  • But getting close enough to surveil the Russians is a risky endeavor.
    Sudarsan Raghavan, Anchorage Daily News, 21 May 2022
  • For months, the state has relied not on state-of-the-art software, but thousands of spreadsheets to surveil the industry.
    Evan Bush, The Seattle Times, 15 Feb. 2018
  • The group that helped him escape used drones to surveil the prison in preparation for the operation.
    Hallie Detrick, Fortune, 3 July 2018
  • Google seems inclined to surveil, Instagram to stage lives.
    The Christian Science Monitor, 25 June 2019
  • Law enforcement could do more to surveil these toxic sites.
    NBC News, 15 May 2022
  • The idea is that the chips will allow the government and corporations to surveil people who get the vaccine.
    John Keilman, chicagotribune.com, 15 Dec. 2020
  • Their data and networks help the government surveil the public.
    New York Times, 29 Apr. 2021
  • The rise of door cameras have led some homeowners to surveil those who take treats from their no-contact candy bowls.
    Annie Atherton, Washington Post, 27 Oct. 2023
  • In fact, the FAA may hold the key that unlocks information about drones used to surveil domestic protests.
    Samuel Woolley, Wired, 3 Nov. 2020
  • Can police legally surveil a huge swath of a city from the air, using software to track people’s movements?
    Dwight Weingarten, The Christian Science Monitor, 23 Feb. 2021
  • And officials may need to constantly surveil sewage or airports for signs of new pathogens.
    Markus Anderljung and Paul Scharre, Foreign Affairs, 14 Aug. 2023
  • The Navy was able to use advanced reconnaissance drones to surveil the ocean floor, and was able to easily locate the debris.
    Justin Klawans, The Week, 7 Feb. 2023
  • This is not the first time the Ethiopian government has been accused of using spyware to surveil critics.
    Dan Goodin, Ars Technica, 6 Dec. 2017
  • Security cameras and a drone will also be installed to surveil the area.
    Fox News, 3 Dec. 2021
  • If being able to surveil every message on Anom was so effective, the FBI might say, why not simply do it more, and in more places?
    Lily Hay Newman, Wired, 11 June 2021
  • For years, executives have openly scoffed at the idea that their app could be used to surveil Americans.
    Casey Newton, The Verge, 4 Jan. 2023
  • The only people who would be easy to surveil would be people who didn't care about government surveillance in the first place.
    Sean Gallagher, Ars Technica, 4 Aug. 2019
  • The public should determine what police officers use—and do not use—to surveil them.
    Kristina Libby, Popular Mechanics, 12 June 2020
  • And the worst thing that can happen is for people to open one up whose real purpose is not to protect an American, but to surveil them.
    Time, 11 Dec. 2019
  • Even electric vehicles and connected cars have been caught in the crosshairs, seen as a covert way to surveil Americans.
    Bypaolo Confino, Fortune, 9 July 2024
  • And yet at any single moment just about anyone with a smartphone has the ability to surveil millions of people across the globe.
    Chris Hayes, The New Yorker, 24 Sep. 2021
  • Democrats responded that the dossier was neither the only nor the critical piece of information the FBI used to get the warrant to surveil Page.
    Erin Kelly, USA TODAY, 2 Feb. 2018
  • There are trail cams and drones and night-vision goggles that could be used — perhaps illegally — to surveil the landscape in hopes of catching the hider.
    Dave Orrick, Twin Cities, 19 Jan. 2017
  • Police in Gresham found that Plympton was living in Troutdale and began to surveil him.
    Marlene Lenthang, NBC News, 19 Mar. 2024
  • Dana Taylor: So, airports and police stations have been using AI to surveil the public for years now, but this week there was a new addition to the list.
    Dana Taylor, USA TODAY, 31 July 2023
  • After all, the Soviets attempted to control and surveil all foreigners’ movements within the Soviet Union, but such an approach would be anathema in any Western democracy.
    Andrei Soldatov, Foreign Affairs, 9 Aug. 2024
  • Most Google Pixel phones sold since September 2017 included software that could be used to surveil or remotely control users’ phones, according to a new report from the cybersecurity company iVerify.
    Gaby Del Valle, The Verge, 15 Aug. 2024

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'surveil.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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